The art of Winslow Homer

If any painter has captured the rugged beauty of Maine's coast - the thrilling play of water and light against rock - it has to be Winslow Homer (1836-1910). "He's a realist and he's a naturalist," said Mark Bessiere, director of the Portland Museum of Art. "He's interested in telling you about the power of nature in a single wave. He wants you to feel the spray, be in that painting itself."

Winslow Homer is pictured c. 1900 in his painting room at Prout's Neck, Me., with his work "The Gulf Stream."

Born in Boston in 1836, Homer's father was a businessman, his mother a watercolorist. He got his start as a combat artist, working for Harper's Weekly during the Civil War.

Before he settled in Maine, Homer lived and worked in New York, and studied in Europe, too, but his work was always distinctly American.

Credit: Bowdoin College Museum of Art

"The Life Line" (1884) by Winslow Homer. Etching printed in blue, on cream wove paper.

Credit: Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago

"Weatherbeaten" by Winslow Homer (1894). Oil on canvas.

Credit: Portland Museum of Art,

The Portland Museum of Art has just finished a 5-year, $2.8 million renovation of the Winslow Homer's studio at Prout's Neck, Me., which is now open to the public for the first time.

To celebrate the studio's opening, the Portland Museum has mounted a new exhibit, titled "Weatherbeaten: The Late Art of Winslow Homer," devoted to the work he produced at Prout's Neck.

Credit: Trent Bell/Portland Museum of Art

Winslow Homer moved to the land in Prout's Neck, purchased by his brother, and settled into the Carriage House, which served as his home and studio for a quarter-century, until his death in 1910. It was purchased by the Portland Museum of Art from Homer's great-grand nephew.